* Verstehen: Max Weber's Homepage

Max Weber and Georg Simmel introduced interpretive understanding ( Verstehen ) into sociology, where it has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture ( such as an anthropologist or sociologist ) relates to an indigenous people or sub-cultural group on their own terms and from their own point-of-view, rather than interpreting them in terms of his or her own culture.

While the exercise of Verstehen has been more popular among social scientists in Europe, such as Habermas, Verstehen was introduced into the practice of sociology in the United States by Talcott Parsons, an American follower of Max Weber.

In Understanding and Explanation: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective, Apel reformulated the difference between understanding ( Verstehen ) and explanation ( Erklärung ), which originated in the hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey and interpretive sociology of Max Weber, on the basis of a Peircean-inspired transcendental-pragmatic account of language.

Study of social action through interpretive means ( Verstehen ) must be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that the individual attaches to their actions.

This, together with his antipositivistic argumentation ( see Verstehen ), can be taken as a methodological justification for the model of the " rational economic man " ( homo economicus ), which is at the heart of modern mainstream economics.

In his sociology, Weber uses the German term " Verstehen " to describe his method of interpretation of the intention and context of human action.

This notion was later explored by Husserl and by Dilthey in his notion of Das Verstehen.

Sombart's insistence on Sociology as a part of the Humanities ( Geisteswissenschaften ), necessarily so because it dealt with human beings and therefore required inside, empathic " Verstehen " rather than the outside, objectivizing " Begreifen " ( both German words translate as " understanding " into English ), became extremely unpopular already during his lifetime, because it was the opposite of the " scientification " of the social sciences, in the tradition of Auguste Comte, Émile Durkheim and Weber ( although this is a misunderstanding ; Weber largely shared Sombart's views in these matters ), which became fashionable during this time and has more or less remained so until today.

In: Kubik, Gerhard Zum Verstehen Afrikanischer Musik, Aufsätze, Reihe: Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd.

Proximal causation: explanation of human social behaviour by considering the immediate factors, such as symbolic interaction, understanding ( Verstehen ), and individual milieu that influence that behaviour.

In anthropology, Verstehen has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others.

Verstehen refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor's point of view.

Verstehen was introduced into philosophy and the human sciences ( Geisteswissenschaften ) by the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to describe the first-person participatory perspective that agents have on their individual experience as well as their culture, history, and society.

Twentieth-century philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer have been critical of what they considered to be the romantic and subjective character of Verstehen in Dilthey, although both Dilthey and the early Heidegger were interested in the " facticity " and " life-context " of understanding, and sought to universalize it as the way humans exist through language on the basis of ontology.

Verstehen also played a role in Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz's analysis of the " lifeworld.

" Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel further transformed the concept of Verstehen, reformulating it on the basis of a transcendental-pragmatic philosophy of language and the theory of communicative action.

Verstehen can mean either a kind of empathic or participatory understanding of social phenomena.

Critics of the social scientific concept of Verstehen such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Dean MacCannell counter that it is simply impossible for a person born of one culture to ever completely understand another culture, and that it is arrogant and conceited to attempt to interpret the significance of one culture's symbols through the terms of another ( supposedly superior ) culture.

Such criticisms do not necessarily allow for the possibility that Verstehen does not involve " complete " understanding.

The opposite of Verstehen would seem to be ignorance of all but that which is immediately observable, meaning that we would not be able to understand any time and place but our own.

Both Weber and Georg Simmel pioneered the Verstehen ( or ' interpretative ') approach toward social science ; a systematic process in which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous people, on their own terms and from their own point-of-view.

* Max Weber's charismatic authority

This chronicle was supposedly destroyed because Marianne Weber feared that Max Weber's work would be discredited by the Nazis if his experience with mental illness were widely known.

Max Weber's article has been cited as a definitive refutation of the dependence of the economic theory of value on the laws of psychophysics by Lionel Robbins, George Stigler, and Friedrich Hayek, though the broader issue of the relation between economics and psychology has come back into the academic debate with the development of " behavioral economics.

For an extensive list of Max Weber's works see list of Max Weber works.

* Radkau, Joachim ( 2005 ), Max Weber most important Weber biography on Max Weber's life and torments since Marianne Weber.

The theme of a religious basis of economic discipline is echoed in sociologist Max Weber's work, but both de Tocqueville and Weber argued that this discipline was not a force of economic determinism, but one factor among many that should be considered when evaluating the relative economic success of the Puritans.

The most commonly used definition is Max Weber's, which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory.

This approach was most notably portrayed in Max Weber's concepts of traditional authority and modern rational-legal authority.

Adorno was chiefly influenced by Max Weber's critique of disenchantment, Georg Lukács's Hegelian interpretation of Marxism, as well as Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history.

Schutz sought to provide a critical philosophical foundation for Max Weber's interpretive sociology through the use of phenomenological methods derived from the transcendental phenomenological investigations of Edmund Husserl.

* Weberian organization theory ( refer to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book ' Economy and Society ')

Cover of the original German edition of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

These explorations into the achievement motive seem to turn naturally into the investigation of national differences based on Max Weber's thesis that the industrialization and economic development of the Western nations were related to the Protestant ethic and its corresponding values supporting work and achievement.

In Natural Right and History Strauss begins with a critique of Max Weber's epistemology, briefly engages the relativism of Martin Heidegger ( who goes unnamed ), and continues with a discussion of the evolution of natural rights via an analysis of the thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out by sociologist Max Weber's in his tripartite classification of authority, the other two being traditional authority and rational-legal authority.

* A distinction between the internal and external considerations of law and rules, close to ( and influenced by ) Max Weber's distinction between the sociological and the legal perspectives of law.

* A distinction between the internal and external points of view of law and rules, close to ( and influenced by ) Max Weber's distinction between the sociological and the legal perspectives upon law.

For Aron, Max Weber's monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force held by the state in its internal affairs does not apply to the relationship between states.

As argued by political scientist Mihaela Czobor-Lupp, his was an " alternative " to the rationalist perspective, and a counterweight to Max Weber's study on The Protestant Ethic.

Ludwig von Mises was influenced by several theories in forming his work on praxeology, including Immanuel Kant's works, Max Weber's work on methodological individualism, and Carl Menger's development of the subjective theory of value.

Developed in the Industrial Age, Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy centers around the theme of rationalization, rules and expertise.